Among many Zambians, statements such as, “if I haven’t eaten nshima I haven’t eaten food” are very common. For many, maize-meal nshima is the only thing that qualifies as “food”, pointing to a severe dependency on maize.

The China Geo-Engineering Corporation under the auspices of the Association of Chinese Corporations in Zambia (ACCZ) donated a refurbished office container to ZIPAR on 10th July 2018 after learning of the Institute’s office space constraints.

On June 21st 2017, President Edgar Lungu launched the Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP), themed “Accelerating development efforts towards the Vision 2030 without leaving anyone behind”. The document is a five-year plan which shall guide national development from now until 2021 and fits into Zambia’s Vision 2030, whose goal is to make Zambia an industrialized prosperous middle income country by that year.

Recently, a heated debate has raged on about whether or not Zambia needs International Monetary Fund (IMF) support for its Economic Stabilization and Growth Programme (ESGP) dubbed Zambia Plus. Different observers have taken divergent positions on the matter.

For some time now, the true extent of the jobs challenge in Zambia has become topics of considerable debate. Indeed this debate has become increasingly more heated in recent times with some members of the Zambian society contesting official statistical figures, which suggest that the unemployment problem in Zambia is not as bad as many believe it to be.

Recently the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Mr. Trevor Kaunda launched the ZIPAR Flagship project called 'More and Better Jobs'. The Executive Director for the Zambia Federation of Employers (ZFE), Mr. Harrington Chibanda sits on an Advisory Group which will guide this project in the next 18 months. One key aspect of ZIPAR's project is its desire to reach out to business to help find solutions to some of the greatest challenges that Zambia faces: high levels of unemployment and low productivity among the employed.

Overall levels of productivity in Zambia have increased but productivity in the formal sector has declined by 3 percent a year, says new research from the Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research.

As the Ministry of Finance commences the preparation of the 2015 National budget, it is worth asking how the government allocates spending across the different programmes it funds. These decisions are often based on existing historic allocations and developmental plans.